Philip Munger

John McCain's choice for Vice President, Alaska's first-term Governor, Sarah Palin, was daring, audacious, novel, disturbing to some Democrats, and - most likely - very, very lame. As August unfolds into September and October, the national spotlight will now inspect Alaska politics more closely than ever. The upcoming corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens is already due to bring more scrutiny toward our politics, but the little-known "Branchflower Investigation" into Palin's firing of her top cop, will now also become a national story.

firedoglake had hoped to wrap up the TedFest! poetry contest here today because it is the first anniversary of the FBI raid on his Girdwood chalet. The raid was the first in the history of the United States upon the home state dwelling of a sitting member of the U.S. Senate. But serendipity mucked up our plans. I don't think "anybody could have predicted" that between the beginning of TedFest! and its wrap-up, Ted would be busted. To answer once and for all the question I’ve dealt with dozens of times since yesterday morning - no - I didn’t know in advance. And I’m not sure Ted did.

When we began the TedFest! poetry contest at firedoglake last week, Alaska's very senior Senator Ted Stevens was ahead of his most likely November challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, by one point. Now, as we let you choose the final winners, Mark Begich is up by nine points. Way to go, gang!

99 Poems about Ted Stevens! 63 on Tuesday, 36 on Wednesday. And although Ted hasn't been surfacing in the news today like he was earlier in the week, the sun doesn't set in the North this time of the year, until very late. Ted did call me though. It was a robo-call. I was really hoping that he'd call, or that somebody from his staff would call back, accepting my offer inviting somebody in his Alaska office to help judge this contest over the weekend. But, no, just another damn GOP robo-call. Here's my favorite part of Ted's call: Hi! This is Senator Ted Stevens. Sorry to miss you today. I've called to invite you to a town hall meeting - BY TELEPHONE! I'm reaching out to you with this new technology....

Alaska's oh so senior Senator Ted Stevens believes New York Senator Charles Schumer runs the Alaska Democratic Party. Now, I know firedoglake isn't exactly Chuck Schumer fan club central (heh....), but I can guarantee you, Ted, I haven't seen Chuck at any Alaska Democratic Party meetings, listened to him in any conference calls, or taken any orders from him. At our Alaska Democratic Party Convention, over Memorial Day weekend, I don't remember even hearing Sen. Schumer's name.

Ted Stevens was so weird, clueless, stuttering and - uh, even more weird - in his statement at that press conference, we need to have another poetry contest. Does he inspire you? We had Dickfest 27 months ago, what we need now is Tedfest. Or whatever it ends up being named in the next couple of days.